[UNRESOLVED as of May 30, 2024] - Quest 3 Controller Tracking Issues

[NotDream]

update May 30, 2024: There have been no updates/improvements to controller tracking since Meta Support marked this as solved! Community consensus seems to be that this issue stems from hardware/software limitations with the controllers, specifically the method of tracking (as a software developer working specifically in the machine learning and computer vision space, I agree that this technology is not particularly robust enough to handle some types of movement). If you play games that require fast hand movements and/or dynamic hand positioning, I would recommend not buying a Quest 3, unfortunately. I've heard some anecdotes regarding improved tracking with the Quest Pro controllers, but the improvements are marginal at best - not worth the additional ~$300 for minimal performance gains IMO. My personal recommendation is to stick to Quest 2. Not to detract from the various improvements that the Quest 3 has brought (e.g., color passthrough w/higher resolution, better hand tracking, higher overall hardware specs compared to Quest 2, etc.), but Quest 2 controller tracking is significantly better than the Quest 3's. Ideally, my hope is that Meta will push an update that allows for pairing Quest 2 controllers with the Quest 3, but as of right now, that's just a pipe dream as Meta has given no indication of making these headsets/controllers backwards compatible. While I'm (naively) hopeful that things will change, realistically speaking, I have 0 expectations and a lot of disappointment.

tl;dr: I've had a Quest 2 for almost 3 years. I received my Quest 3 today and was very excited to use it. Controller tracking performance is much worse than the Quest 2, at least in the context of games where you swing your arms as fast as you can. This was not a problem for the Quest 2 (unless controllers were physically damaged, e.g., hitting a wall, dropping them, etc.). Don't buy if you play games like Gorilla Tag, Beat Saber, Synth Riders, or any of the other games mentioned throughout this thread!!!

Question:
Are there ways to modify the Quest 3's controller tracking such that fast hand movements won't be affected by the prediction-like behavior where the in-game hand moves farther than you swing? When I perform a baseball throwing movement with my hand/arm, the tracking will not keep up and it ends up losing my hand's position for a fraction of a second, causing my in-game hand to be positioned farther away than my hand actually is (this is not an issue with Quest 2 controller tracking).

Details/Context:
I primarily use VR for exercise, and I mostly play Gorilla Tag. Gorilla Tag is a game where you play as the upper half of a gorilla, using your arms as your means of locomotion. Basically, you use your arms as if they were your legs, and you can run, climb trees, wall-run, etc. It's an infection-based tagging game where you join a lobby of up to 9 other people, and the game will randomly select a player to be the first tagger. The tagger(s) will continue tagging until everyone in the lobby has been tagged (infection-style), and then a random player will be selected as first tagger; this pattern just continuously repeats.

While the learning curve is pretty steep to play at a high level, there is a growing community of players who are very competitive (approx. 10-20k players based on the communities I participate in - Competitive Gorilla Tag on Discord and Gorilla Tag Competitive on Discord). As a prominent member of this community, people have been seeking my feedback on whether or not the Quest 3 is worth it. While I feel that a majority of the new features are amazing, I have had issues with the controller tracking.

Gorilla Tag is an active game where you're constantly swinging your arms as fast as you can to travel around the map(s) to avoid being tagged. The primary player base for the game is Quest 2 users. Aside from physical damage, most players have not had any problems with controller tracking on the Quest 2, aside from when the controller goes out of the tracking range of the headset (as expected). 

However, the Quest 3 controllers lose tracking during medium-fast to fast hand movement (medium-fast: like playing catch with a friend; fast: throwing a baseball as hard as you can). The consequence of this in the context of Gorilla Tag is that your in-game arm extends to the game's max arm length frequently, causing your hand to collide with the wall/tree/ground and launch you away from the surface. This is a big issue for games/activities involving fast-paced hand movement as it's not nearly as reliable as the Quest 2 controller tracking performance. 

[Fatalution]

That's...not really true? The camera placement is not relevant, as controller camera tracking works in the same way it did back in CV1 days (if we disable all the AI hand pose tracking on top). The only difference is that the cameras are now mounted on your face, that's about it.

I don't see any logical explanation behind not giving the ability to pair Q2 controllers and using the Q2 tracking algorithm for them. No need to retrain anything, just a mode switch.

If camera placement is somehow making things hard - adjusting the algorithm for the new camera placement shouldn't be hard. As this was solved, again, back in 2016

[Fangzhou]

Meta employee just playing dead until the company lost user and they lost their job. By that time Zuckerberg may finally remember to search what is the end user’s request. Just hire some professional devs fix your non-professional software, don’t do other useless thing.

[NINJA1584]

Literally still having issues with Quest 3 tracking... has anything been resolved to make this gaming experience worth the money? I mainly use it for gorilla tag and it's awful at tracking...

[Praddy1980s]

Having this issue since yesterdya. All were good so far for a month since i got the Quest 3. Suddenly out of no where i get the message headset can't track my movement and forced me into travel mode. I rebooted and since that was solved. But ever since, controllers lose access in between and goes into hand tracking. I disabled the hand tracking, but the same issue repeats and i have to press the meta button to see the controllers again. Thsi has messed up playing my IB cricket where the bat just slips out of the hand and very difficult to hold. But all the other games i played seems to be ok. Is there a solution to this? I don't have any third party accessories. 

[fouzr]

Make sure Travel Mode is still off. Since it forces Camera Tracking and ignores the IMU, tracking becomes very jittery. I had accidentally forgotten to turn travel mode off and realized this while playing C Smash VRS

[akki136]

What has been done for fixing the issue. As games like ib cricket are simply unplayable. 

This will break trust on meta if you keep us hanging on such issues with no update on progress for such blocker issues. 

[DeeX0]

'This has caused major trust issues. Fool me once...

This sucks!

😞

[DeeX0]

Yes, please Meta listen to your customers. : /

[SkulllFace]

It doesn't look like they are.. Its been over a year and my quest 3 is sitting at the corner collecting dust and now they release 3s with the same controllers with no ring. It seems like this issue isn't being noticed or worked on at all. I hope no one falls into that trash product

[cherrycolaa]

Hey @SkulllFace @DeeX0 @akki136 - Can you please provide me with the following info? 

• Software Version no.
• Firmware no. 
• Are you on a PTC build (experimental features enabled)

Then, run the device until you get the issue and immediately submit a bug report - make sure you pop "IMU" in the comment of the bug report.

I'm going to raise this once again, and hopefully we'll be able to get this fixed! 🍒